Sample analysis

The headline of the article is Hussein Divides Iraq, Even in Death. The article is published on December 31, 2006 in the newspaper the International Herald Tribune bySabrina Tavernise. The topic of the given article is Iraq after Hussein’s death. The main idea can be formulated in the following way: after Hussein’s death the country still remains divided due to different responses made by Sunnis and Shiites about his execution.

The summary. The article provides information on Saddam Hussein execution. At the very beginning of the article the author points out that Saddam Hussein is dead, but his legacy is more alive than ever. Though the former dictator has been hanged, the responses to the execution are different. For Shiites, long oppressed, it was a moment of intense release. Sunni Arabs were skeptical. Their different reactions show how far Iraqis have drifted apart in the three years since Mr. Hussein’s capture.

Then the author emphasizes that the new Iraq appears capable of inflicting only more of the abuse it suffered for so long, perpetuating it with overwhelming brutality. As vicious as he was, Mr. Hussein held the country firmly together. Beyond military control, there was a subtle social glue: Iraqis of all sects loved to hate Saddam together. Now that he is gone, Shiites are afraid to joke with Sunnis about him, and Sunnis feel they are being blamed for his crimes. Mr. Hussein spared almost no one in his murderous ways, but Shiites were particularly abused as a group. That systematic mistreatment seems to have left lasting scars that carry through to the current day. For some Iraqis, previous humiliations were enough to feel justice had been done.

Next the author presents different attitudes to the execution: if Shiites saw the hanging as a gift, most Sunnis revolted that, in what appeared to be a violation of Iraqi law, the execution was scheduled on a holiday of forgiveness. Others, namely Kurds, opposed the quick hanging. Now, Mr. Hussein will not testify in other important genocide cases, especially the trial over the Anfal military campaign against the Kurds, in which he is accused of unleashing mass killings and chemical attacks that killed tens of thousands of villagers.

In the final paragraphs the author stresses that still car bombs regularly intercede, shattering the calm. In response, Iraqis of both sects attempt to draw circles around the chaos in their own minds. As a result, they tend to generalize about the other, coming up with conspiracy theories, to make the violence easier to explain and accept.

The author concludes the article using the quotation: as Mr. Jasim said: "If we got rid of the terrorists, there would be no country better than Iraq, it’s the non-Iraqis that are against the Shiites." It is a common conclusion of the articles of this type.

The inferences. The genre of the article is news analysis. In my opinion the author managed to convey in the analyzed article the atmosphere created in the country after Hussein execution. The author gives different views made by ordinary people who live in Iraq and belong to different sects. The text contains some statistics as well. All these things contribute to the information presented in the article. The article is up-to-date since it was published a couple of days after Hussein execution.

The criteria for news selection that are of key importance for the given article are prominence as far as Iraq problem is widely discussed in the world not only by the politicians of great states but ordinary people as well, timeliness due to the fact that this article was published soon after the execution of Hussein, human interest that is caused by the nature of the execution itself (this event arose different attitudes of people in the world).

The target audience of the article is rather broad. The text will be interesting, first of all, for the Iraqis, secondly, for the international audience, for people who are not indifferent to the matters taking place in the world around them.

The language of the article is formal. It is full of different words and word combinations taken from the political sphere. It is not always easy for understanding.

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